After a little interlude, here is the next installment of stuff I made for the war of 1866 in Bohemia. To add interest I have posed the buildings with figures of both armies that I converted and painted.
The first building is what's called a Speicher in German, meaning a food store, meant to protect grain and other foodstuffs from damp and vermin. You get them in Bohemia and some parts of Germany. The principle is that the ground floor is built of stone and has no outside access. The only door is upstairs, accessed by steps, and there would be internal stairs leading down to the ground floor and up to another floor. The troops here are an Austrian 4-pounder, Infantry Regiment 15 and a brigade command group. The gun is scratchbuilt and the figures are all heavy conversions.
The roof of the Speicher was created out of a shingle roof from some German model railway kit. The infantry regiment is that named after the Duke of Nassau, whose name (Hzg. v. Nassau) you can see on the flag cover, worn over the standard-bearer's shoulder. As well as the general splendour of the Austrian colours, each had a magnificent collection of streamers and tassles. These figures started as Helion/ Northstar, but at the time they only had Hungarian infantry, so the trousers are done with Greenstuff. The arms and rifles come from a Perrys plastic ACW set.
Back to the Prussians. This is the other unit I did recently from the new Perry plastics, here in firing line poses. The sitting casualty figure is a North Star one, blended in with Perry details. The little buildings here are a bread oven and a planked shed, both mainly from German model railway items again. To be honest I don't really know if they had freestanding bread ovens in Bohemia, but it was such a nice model and compatible with the other buildings.
A closer shot of the Prussians. I do like to go to town with the bases these days, adding foliage tufts, long grass tufts and blending them in with static grass. I take a perverse delight in squeezing six figures and half the landscape onto each 45mm x 40mm base, because I have a downer on the modern trend for gi-normous bases, "overbasing" as I call it!
Here we have another feature of the Bohemian rural scene, a village inn. The portal or whatever you'd call it is common to virtually all inns there, and because they were thus marked out they mostly didn't bother to have a particular sign. This is odd, but it's what my research found. The hostelry is posed with a 4-pounder in aiming mode and a Jaeger battalion. I think these started life as Perrys Carlist War figures, but I did sculpt and cast my own heads for the very distinctive headgear.
The gun here is in loading mode, with the NCO "thumbing the vent". Junior NCO's wore this impressive arrangement of cords and pom-poms. The artillery branch of service was for centuries the pride of the Austrian army, and they did outstanding service in 1866, when the Prussian artillery was a bit rubbish. Something the Prussian/ German army was good at however was learning the right lessons, and they copied the Austrian artillery's methods in 1870, to decisive effect.
No sooner had I converted 30 Jaeger figures than North Star released perfectly nice figures for this troop type. so I had to have some of them too. The command base is Colonel Hertwek, who commanded a brigade at the battle of Skalitz bravely, although disastrously. Anyway, here we have the two types of well seen in the area, a well sweep for areas where water was just below the surface and the conventional wind-up type. This specific well was copied from a line drawing in Fontane's history of the campaign. Throughout the desperate action of Burkersdorf a village lad drew water for the hard-pressed Austrian defenders, and nice to relate, the trigger-happy Prussians managed not to injure him. The War of 1866 seems to have been conducted in a thoroughly gentlemanly manner, as wars go.
Superb buildings and troops.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely outstanding work on everything, once again John. The buildings and terrain pieces are up to the usual exceptional standard, and your Austrian and Prussian figures are sublime!
ReplyDeleteApologies John as I realise much of the post is about the figures - but I love the Inn and the bread oven. Thanks for sharing them.
ReplyDeleteRichard
Such wonderful buildings and troops! Your taste in basing is very much as mine, with your own executed much better. Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteSuperb as always John , your attention to detail is exceptional, I shall be slavishly copying the poses in your Prussian firing line , the Helion wounded figures fits in very well.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much, guys.
ReplyDeleteMartin, the Helion figures fit in fairly well, and there's a couple in the regiment I showed before. The figures' heads might have done OK, but I swopped them for plastic ones. The muskets certainly need changing, because the metal ones are very thick and the plastic ones very skinny.
By the way, you (almost) can't go wrong in the poses of the plastic figures. Michael P has done a number of body/ leg parts that look right with almost any of the firing or loading arm combinations. In one or two cases you have to fill in a bit with Greenstuff, but it's the work of a moment. One extra pose I did come up with is to use the firing arms but put the rifle sloping down. I think it looks as though he's ready to fire but looking for a target/ peering through the smoke. He's fourth from left in the back rank.
Thank you John a good tip about the head and rifle swap.
ReplyDeleteSuperb work on these buildings as always John. They look so realistic due to the subtle weathering on the walls, woodwork etc. The figures aren't too shabby either;).
ReplyDeleteThese buildings all look fantastic as do the figures. Sculpting your own heads is a great achievement - the work is seamless, as are the rest of the conversions too. I think ranked figures look better tightly packed on the bases as yours are. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteThankyou, Anonymous, Steve and Kym. Another post should be up over the next day. It's going to be the Bohemian chateau. Suitably posed with 1866 figures.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely stunning work and an early Christmas present to see such useful and beautifully executed buildings. Thank you for the inspiration you provide. I do not comment often, but visit when I can and am always excited to see your latest creations.
ReplyDeleteAll the best for the holidays and 2023!
Chris (Canada)
Much appreciated, Chris! There will be more stuff soon, but I have had some sort of a flu virus for the last eight days, and still not shaken it off. Should have something to post in a couple of days though. In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you and everyone who has taken the trouble to comment on my blog!
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